What skills and experience we're looking forTEACHING ASSISTANTJOB DESCRIPTIONPURPOSE OF THE ROLETo support and assist the sta.....
What skills and experience we're looking for
TEACHING ASSISTANT
JOB DESCRIPTION
PURPOSE OF THE ROLE
To support and assist the staff and the school with the educational, physical and social needs of pupils; particularly in the management of pupils’ learning, development and well-being.
To work with the school to support the delivery of the curriculum to meet the needs of all pupils.
The post-holder is one of a team of support staff who support the learning and development of pupils. Flexibility by all staff is important in order to meet the needs of pupils and the school.
The post-holder is managed by the Headteacher supported by our senior leaders and under the day-to-day supervision of class teachers across the school.
Additional information
The post-holder is required to contribute to and support the overall aims, ethos and development plans of the school.
All staff are required to participate in training and other learning activities, as required by the school’s policies and practices.
Main areas of responsibility and other duties
• To ensure the safety and well-being of all pupils at all times, have robust knowledge of and compliance with all school Child Protection and Safeguarding policies and procedures; whilst understanding the responsibilities contained within the current Keeping Children Safe in Education document.
• To assist with the delivery of learning activities to groups of children or individuals as part of lessons delivered by teachers; but also small group support programmes, as directed by the class teacher or other professionals supporting the children.
• To support the learning of all children, including children with SEN and other challenges, across the school.
• To assist with the tuition and assessment of pupils in all areas of the curriculum and provide feedback to the class teacher.
• Attend to pupils’ personal and social needs, including health, hygiene, first aid and welfare matters.
• To promote a positive and enthusiastic attitude to learning.
• To proactively contribute to the school’s established expectations of pupil behaviour and achievement.
• To adhere to the school’s behaviour policy and therapeutic ethos.
• Support and extend pupils of all abilities under the direction of the class teacher.
• To liaise with parents and carers under the direction of the class teacher and to maintain professional relationships with staff, pupils and parents/carers.
• To contribute to and attend meetings with professionals.
• To assist with escorting children on educational visits.
• To supervise, engage and support children’s learning through play during break and lunchtimes, ensuring their safety, whilst maintaining the school’s expectations of behaviour and good manners.
• Prepare classrooms and other learning environments and clear afterwards.
• Support teachers to maintain a safe and stimulating learning environment.
• To perform any other reasonable tasks requested by the Headteacher and Senior Leaders.
The accountabilities and responsibilities listed here are neither definitive nor exhaustive. The job description is therefore subject to change to reflect or anticipate changes in the post that may be required to accommodate the needs of the pupils and the school.
The post is classed as having a high degree of contact with children and vulnerable adults and is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. An enhanced disclosure with be sought through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) as part of Flamstead End School’s pre-employment checks.
What the school offers its staff
Information about the Generations Multi Academy Trust (GMAT)
Welcome to our information pack about the Generations Multi Academy Trust. GMAT is a cross-phase Multi Academy Trust based in Cheshunt, currently comprising two secondaries and one primary - Goffs, Goffs-Churchgate and Flamstead End School. It is our hope that a further primary, Andrews Lane School, will join our partnership from November 2024. Across the piece, GMAT currently has just under 3,000 students in its care and employs just under 400 staff. From Spring 2023, the MAT opened nursery provision on the Goffs-Churchgate site, with subsidised and term-time only places for staff. The nursery is run by Ashbourne Nurseries - https://ashbournedaynurseries.com/
The MAT is extremely clear about its daily purpose, reflected in its motto of “No Set Destiny for Any Child.” All of our schools, leaders and staff fiercely believe in the life-changing nature of education and work tirelessly to that end, day in and day out. There is no set destiny for any of the children in our care; rather, our daily work across the piece allows children to forge new futures and destinies.
Flamstead End School is a thriving primary school in Cheshunt with approximately 485 children on roll. It has a Preschool, 60-place nursery offering 30 hours provision and two classes per year group from Reception to Year 6. Flamstead End is a 'Therapeutic Thinking' school and seeks to understand and support children's behaviour so that they are able to learn and achieve to the best of their ability. The school is a tight knit community, with a well-established staff who care for one another and the children in their charge.
Goffs-Churchgate is a fully mixed comprehensive school for 11-16 year olds, with just over 600 students on roll. The school has rightly established a very strong reputation for both its academic outcomes and its close-knit, nurturing community, receiving over 600 applications for 120 places for 2024 admission. The decision to cap student numbers at 600 is entirely deliberate, enabling us to maintain a strong sense of community where everybody knows everybody else.
Goffs is a mixed 11-18 comprehensive Academy with approximately 1,600 students on roll, including a thriving and successful Sixth Form. The school is also extremely popular in the local area, with an average of over 800 applications annually for the 240 places available, and significant waiting lists for places across the year groups.
All of our schools enjoy extremely high levels of applications and are over-subscribed. The schools are within close proximity of each other and share many activities, including CPD for staff. One of the Trust’s fundamental principles is that no one school is in any way more important or successful than the other. As such, CPD and other events are rotated through schools in the Trust, with everyone learning from and sharing with each other. This collegiate and collaborative approach permeates our Trust.
Staff and students work in modern, professional environments, with all schools benefitting from recent building projects including a full, £20million rebuild at Goffs. The facilities provide light, modern, professional and a fit for purpose working environment for all.
Notwithstanding a highly challenging funding situation for schools generally, the MAT remains financially secure. Finances are overseen by a Chief Finance Officer with considerable financial expertise in the private sector. The Trust deliberately created an Income Generation function, and extensive lettings and business development work now takes place across all sites in the MAT. This additional income – now yielding in excess of £500k per annum – underpins generous levels of staffing at our schools, plus many “extras” that would otherwise be unaffordable in the current funding climate.
Our schools pride themselves on their sense of community – both within the school itself, and in the wider locality. Visitors to our schools unfailingly comment on a very real sense of community, coupled with warmth and pride. Our schools are members of Cheshunt Extended Services (ChExS), offering a variety of extended school and community-based activities for both students and parents. Our students actively support local charity work such as the Isabel Hospice and maintain strong links with our local primary schools.
Our schools are proud to be truly community-based schools, with students and staff from different religions and a number of languages spoken in each school. As a Trust we recognise and celebrate what makes us unique and different, and acknowledge that we are also part of one community. Our aim is for everybody to feel valued and respected and we strive hard to ensure we create a positive culture within the schools to enable this to happen.
We are looking forward to further widening our Trust and to working in partnership with both primary schools and further secondaries. Further information about GMAT can be found here: https://generationsmat.com/
Outcomes
Goffs Academy
Exam results in 2024 reflect another year of huge success for Goffs. The results reflect a 3 year upward trend and an impressive improvement on the excellent outcomes achieved across the headline measures last year.
GCSE highlights include:
• Extremely strong progress scores across the headline measures with results considerably above the national average (Estimated progress 8 score: 0.24)
• Particularly impressive outcomes in English and Maths; both subjects achieved a progress score significantly above the national average. English Language performed particularly strongly at grade 4+ and grade 5+ exceeding the national average of students achieving these grades by 20%. Maths performed particularly strongly at the top end with 28% of students achieving grade 7+. This is very comfortably above the national average of 17%.
• 72% of students achieved grade 4 or above in English and Maths (6% above the national average).
• 52% of students achieved grade 5 or above in English and Maths (6% above the national average).
• 21% of the GCSE grades were at grade 7 or above.
• The percentage of students entering the full Ebacc was 64% which is significantly above the national average of 39%, and the Hertfordshire average of 47%.
At A-Level, continuing the upward trend of recent years, students achieved another excellent set of exam results, including an overall 100% pass rate. 64% of Year 13 students secured a university or college place to start in autumn 2024. The wide range of university or further education courses onto which students have progressed include Law, History, Geography, Maths, Finance, Physics and Biomedical Science, other students have gained places on fiercely competitive apprenticeships in areas such as Civil Engineering and within the NHS. Our Sixth Form has an excellent reputation in the local area, over the past three years the numbers of students applying to join our Sixth Form has continued to increase, such that we now have approximately 400 Sixth Formers within our school community.
Goffs-Churchgate Academy
Exam results in 2024 have once again produced an overall estimated progress score significantly above the national average and reflect the continued success the school has achieved since joining the Trust in 2017.
Highlights include:
• Exceptionally strong progress scores across the headline measures, with the overall progress 8 score significantly above the national average for a third year in a row. (Estimated progress 8 score: 0.38).
• Excellent outcomes were achieved in Maths and the performance in English was phenomenally strong (Estimated Maths progress score: 0.33. Estimated English progress score: 0.63).
• The outcomes at the top end were particularly impressive with the progress score for the students with high prior attainment very significantly above the national average.
• There was a 12% increase in the percentage of students entering the full Ebacc to bring the overall entry figure to 67% which is significantly above the national average of 39%, and the Hertfordshire average of 47%.
Flamstead End School
Extremely strong outcomes were achieved across the school in 2024. The improvements in this year’s outcomes are reflective of the rapid whole school improvement that has taken place in Flamstead End School since joining the Trust in January 2023.
Highlights include:
• The percentage of students achieving Good Level of Development in Early Years, at 72% remains above the national average of 68%.
• Very strong Phonics outcomes in Year 1 with a 90% pass rate. This is 9% above the national average and reflects an 8% increase from last year.
• Outcomes in the Multiplications Tables Check were particularly strong at the top end with 50% of the cohort achieving 24 or 25 marks.
• Key Stage 2 SATs results across the board are extremely strong and comfortably above both the national and Hertfordshire averages: There was particularly impressive performance in Key Stage 2 Writing with 80% achieving the expected standard (National average: 72%), and 32% achieving greater depth, which is considerably above the national average of 13%.
• Key Stage 2 Maths outcomes at the higher standard were excellent with 40% of the cohort achieved the higher standard, which is 26% above the national average.
Staff Development
The Trust has an extremely strong reputation for staff development, for both teaching and support staff. Developing the next generation of school leaders, both middle and senior, plus future Headteachers for those who wish to pursue this, is a responsibility that we take very seriously. We have a full suite of staff leadership development which staff can join be they an ECT or highly experienced colleague.
In addition to whole staff training days, we disaggregate a number of hours for training every year. This allows staff development to be highly personalised as staff can opt for the training which best meets their needs, including the opportunity to do a research project in partnership with Cambridge University. Many use their disaggregated time to coach others or to receive coaching. Moreover, there are specific training sessions for ECTs and other interested staff which run each week after school.
We also place a lot of emphasis on ‘on the job’ training and support. A thorough induction scheme is available to all new staff, and mentors/buddies are assigned to guide you through those new routines. Finally, external courses can of course be booked if, on very rare occasions, we cannot cater for a particular training need in house.
Leadership Development
The Trust’s Leadership Academy encompasses both staff and student leadership development through a series of student led groups and staff leadership pathways. The staff programme specifically provides opportunities for:
• Aspiring Middle Leaders
• Aspiring Senior Leaders
All pathways are personalised for the individual and staff receive one to one support from a mentor alongside working on a whole school project. Both support staff and teaching staff are welcome to join the Leadership Academy at any point in their career.
A full suite of leadership training is offered with a range of sessions including:
• Communicating vision and values
• Developing your leadership approach
• Building a high performing team
• Supporting your team
• Leading your team day to day
• Quality assuring effective teaching
• Observation for improvement
• Using data for impact
• Fostering positive behaviour for learning
• Leading and managing innovation and change
Attendance to all training sessions leads to certification by the SSAT. In addition, we encourage aspirant Senior Leaders to take part in the SSAT ‘Stepping Up to Senior Leadership’ training programme, which includes four external sessions throughout the year. As part of the Trust’s commitment to developing future leaders, a number of the existing Senior Leadership Team across both secondary schools gained experience through an ‘Associate’ SLT position before gaining substantive leadership posts.
Trust Staff Benefits
Alongside our very strong focus on outstanding professional development and promotion opportunities, we also offer a range of benefits including:
Competitive base salary with a tailor made development plan aimed at enhancing your future [earnings] potential through:
• High quality, personalised CPD
• Bespoke leadership development programmes
• Subsidies for Masters and Degree courses
• Secondment and shadowing opportunities
• As part of our Multi Academy Trust, “Generations”, potential to work across more than one school to develop career enhancing skills and knowledge.
• Supported Nursery provision with Ashbourne at any of their nurseries in the Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire, and Bedfordshire area:
• 15% discount for all Trust staff
• Term time only places are available.
• A school day would be 9.00am – 3.00pm
• “Sundries” would be applied to a child taking up a funded only space (e.g. 30 hours funding only). This covers the cost of: meals, snacks, nursery resources
• All staff have access to a wide range of health and wellbeing resources which includes an Employee Assistance Programme via Spectrum.Life who offer a wide range of health and wellbeing resources, plus access to counselling for staff and their immediate family. The EAP service is accessible 24/7, 365 days a year and is a completely free and confidential service
• The MAT adheres to the STPCD for its teaching staff
• Cycle to work scheme
• Onsite car valeting at a reduced price for Trust staff
• Substantially discounted membership to Lifestyle Fitness’s state of the art purpose built gym, at Goffs Academy
Additional financial incentives and tax efficient benefits, including:
• Exam marker payment of £400 plus 2 days paid leave to do the marking (1styear)
• Payments for staff taking weekend sporting fixtures: staff paid £200 for leading a minimum of six Saturday fixtures plus 6 weekly training sessions.
• A daily allowance of £50 for school trips taken over a weekend or any school holiday.
• A £1,000 Employee Referral Scheme (i.e. finder’s fee) for anyqualifying positionsthat you refer the successful candidate for: £500 on the person starting, and £500 if the person is still at the school 12 months later.
Access to a wide range of health and well-being resources including:
• New, professional, and fit for purpose working environments
• Free use of a range of sports and leisure facilities including a fully equipped gym and swimming pool.
• Occupational Health & counselling support
• Free flu jabs
• Subsidised social events
• Free tea, coffee, and milk for staff
Alison Garner
Chief Executive Officer
Commitment to safeguarding
Our organisation is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. We expect all staff, volunteers and trustees to share this commitment. Our recruitment process follows the keeping children safe in education guidance. Offers of employment may be subject to the following checks (where relevant): childcare disqualification Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) medical online and social media prohibition from teaching right to work satisfactory references suitability to work with children You must tell us about any unspent conviction, cautions, reprimands or warnings under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975.
